Wherever the ages have found direction or answers to life’s mysteries – be it in nature, in God, in science, today in art… and in the future in philosophy …

Meaningless because no overarching coherence exists? Then rather a clamour of meaning! Surely we live in a din of attitudes and opinions in our time. Only in the darkness are we free…

How our language is packed full of attitudes and interests. Take the expression ‘man does’ – why not ‘a woman does’? The word breaks everything down into simple opposites.

We live, puzzle and laugh within language; we cannot lift ourselves out of it; we think linguistically; our reality derives its meaning from the words and symbols we use.

In a world such as the information society, we can no longer speak of meaninglessness, but rather of a clamouring diversity of meaning, a traffic where there is no country lane or quiet patch of earth to be found.

When so many people have so many opinions at any given moment, we should occasionally bring the traffic to a halt by switching off the engine, looking out of the window and asking ourselves: what on earth are these roads good for? Do not let yourself be disturbed by the shouts from the queue of cars behind.

Questions are the only things that can quiet the noise or the traffic. Sometimes, life’s activities and thoughts can feel as though they’re running on rails, following a track. If you want to avoid becoming single-tracked (if you see that as a danger), you must jump off the train or pull the emergency brake. Only then will you see the tracks.

If life feels empty and meaningless, you’ve probably pulled the emergency brake a few times; you’ve no doubt turned off the ignition a few times or hidden away when the school bell rang. 

The speed at which we experience the production of meaning and explanations in our time is unprecedented. We mustn’t miss out on anything. Plenty of tools allow us to take part and be efficient.

When we deserve a holiday, we also slip quickly into a machine called tourism. Not only the journey by bus, plane, accommodation, check-in, bus and camel; but also the drinks, the service, the excursions and the evening’s entertainment there in southern latitudes. Why doesn’t what your grandfather did appeal to you; when he took his walking stick and walked up to his old tree stump. Where, gazing outwards, he found peace of mind? 

The Enlightenment ideal may have led you into the ranks of clattering railway carriages, where you believe you are free when you have the freedom to do as you please. But to call the ability to participate in everything ‘freedom’ is surely old-fashioned today. Freedom today must surely be the right to hide away. Just make sure that, whilst seeking refuge in your dreams, you do not allow yourself to be overpowered by films and advertising. You would then once again be old-fashioned – that is, out of step with the times – in that you allow the film industry to monitor you: your subconscious. 

The problem is not that life is meaningless; we are so full of meaning and continue to be so all the time.

If direction is lost, if we modern people have no absolute truth as to why we live, life does not become the opposite – untrue or meaningless. Many small directions and the experience of them whilst we live can, after all, provide a fullness and richness that make life meaningful. But taken to the extreme, you can be overwhelmed by the clamour of all these meanings. Or, at the opposite extreme, in the silence, despair at the absence of that one god. 

When modern people can stand within the ephemeral, when neither the flight into deafening noise nor the absolute guarantees of why we are here are the only options – then we have, perhaps, the readiness for a kind of meaningfulness that allows you to recognise yourself as a passenger. He who dreams of escaping or jumping ship at least knows what he is trapped by.